To Repeat Some Career Advice for Me

Advice from March of 2016:

This morning a friend of mine seemed to be a little annoyed after reading a newspaper story on a guy, with less than minimal film & television production experience, who got a decent job on a television series.

My late father, who was "career air force", knew the score for those of us who haboured any pretentions of wanting to work and excel in the film and television business. He dispensed a certain line of sage advice on more than one occasion, even after I had a small record of the Barrie Examiner, Barrie Banner, and CKVR Television doing stories on me and my pals making film. Here it is, made even more relevant now that the wonderful explosion in media technologies allows anyone to make video:

"You have to know how to sell yourself. Stand out from the pack. Otherwise you just get lost in the crowd."

Going Solo For the Moment

A friend said to me on the weekend, "you should watch one of the Disney Star Wars movies". I responded: "I should. Okay. Give me Solo."

This special offer I mentioned to another friend of mine, another friend who is probably bemused I've seen no Star Wars flicks since the painful -- the third and final of three very painful prequel films -- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. His answer with a laugh: "You picked the worst one."

That I realized this evening, actually last evening as I'm putting this late to bed, not long after I fired up Solo: A Star Wars Story. I made it to the 27 minute mark then shut off the player. (What exactly was that? Someone said "worst"?)

Next episode: "From the 27 minute mark on."

A Designer Checks His Plans

Me in October of 1985 working on a set build in the Graveyard Shift workshop. It's really a matter of holding the architectural ruler against the blueprint to make sure the calculations are right.

That gig was a lot of fun. And I learned a lot. It's true: You make it work. There's never enough time and money, but somehow it all comes together.

Terrific shop crew: Dave Fiacconi, Chris Leger, and Mark Lang.

Sunday Fun: The Waltons Opening (1st Season)

I'll admit right off the top that I was not a regular viewer of The Waltons, a very popular television series from many years ago about a fictitious but authentic American rural family from many decades ago. With the general public, however, the long-running series (1972 - 1981) was good family viewing. I caught bits and pieces.

Created by writer, producer, and novelist Earl Hamner, who based the series on his book "Spencer's Mountain" which was based on his experiences growing up in Virginia during the Great Depression, The Waltons was actually an offshoot of "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story", a television movie first broadcast in December of 1971.

The series version caught on to became a television classic. Classy: The catchy and classic theme music.

Canada Geese Grazing in the Spring

I took this picture back in the Spring; no doubt the little ones are now fully grown and down south, with colder temperatures beginning to settle here in Toronto.

Connectivity: A Disconnection Notice

Jerry Goldsmith Obituary (Toronto Sun - 7/23/04)

A Memory of a Stan Lee Creation

I couldn't put it down. Actually I put it, The Amazing Spider-Man #33, down on a table in the base PX's cafeteria at CFB Baden-Soellingen. My dad bought me the comic book minutes earlier after I saw it sitting on the news stand. (For himself he may have grabbed the latest issue of the Stars and Stripes.)

We were living in then West Germany when I cobbled that memory. As I found out many years later, issue 33 was first published in February of 1966, which predates my acquiring the book by a few years. I'm guessing it was a reissue; either that or the distributor had some copies remaining.

About ten years later a friend of mine knew exactly and without hesitation what issue I had read. There were others, and from different franchises, but a story about Spider-Man stuck under machinery in a rapidly flooding compartment was most memorable. And, as Lorne, my comic book authority mate, said, number 33 is a famous issue of Spidey.

Stan Lee, who died on Monday at the age of 95, knew how to spin a story, any size.

Douglas Rain Made HAL 9000

Late Sunday night I heard the sad news that Canadian stage and screen actor Douglas Rain died earlier that day. Not too sad, however, as he lived to 90 years of age. As I wrote in July, I am a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's stellar-opus 2001: A Space Odyssey. In among many essential and memorable elements of that classic film is the character of HAL 9000, voiced to marvelous effect by Rain.

Kubrick had decided early on in 2001's development that he wanted the narrator of Universe, a National Film Board of Canada short subject already influential in the look of his own production, but the Canadian thespian was booked solid. The perfectionist director tested several other voice boxes, including the one belonging to actor Martin Balsam, but he could not get rid of  his first notion. As it turned out, more due to 2001's protracted production schedule than anything else, Rain became available and movie history was made.

Douglas Rain was "Hal". We Canadians tend to speak a mid-Atlantic English; perfectly suited for a soft-robotic voice, and Stanley Kubrick understood that.

The super-computer (on his own mission) had many memorable lines, but this is one of my favourites:

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

And the line that tells the audience the Discovery's computer has turned into a little creep:

"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

John A. MacDonald and Queen's Park, Toronto

Remembrance Day 2018 Queen's Park Toronto

Film Design: Tights and Fights Set Rough Layout

Once a designer gets the brief on what the set is and what size it should be in keeping with the show's budget, it's a matter of sketching out some basic concepts. In the case of Major Faultline's spaceship bridge it would consist basically of two wings or walls. So as not to be looking into a corner I added a third but smaller section. It went from there.

Above is my rough of the plan view (looking down at the set) and a basic front-on.

From there I developed the detailing in addition to locking down the exact dimensions of the set's structure.

Tight's and Fights was a web series produced between 2010 and 2012.

Film Design: Thumbnails for a Desert Place

The above sketches of a barren land are for a film project I am working on. Where they lead shows in the final production. (I'll upload the intermediate drawings after the short is complete.)

These thumbnails were not done on a paper napkin in a greasy spoon, but rather in my pocket sketchbook in a coffee shop.

23 Fraser Avenue, Toronto - A Production Centre

The building has since been refaced, but 23 Fraser Avenue carries many memories for me as it was one my places of employment for a few years. When I started working there in late 1994 it was packed to the gills with various production and media companies. It seemed every nook and cranny was put to good rental use. The primary tenant was Film Opticals of Canada Ltd., for which I worked, often into the wee hours of the morning shooting film and composites.

In the back of the building were two soundstages: 23 FPS Studios 1 and 2. (I utilized both stages for principal photography on Hyper-Reality, my uncompleted 35mm short film.)

For a while I had an office at the front of the building -- cheap rent at the time.

Photo Graph: Varsity Stadium Track to CN Tower

A Few Good Men - Prime Ministers of Canada

A picture from 1967 featuring Liberal Party of Canada politicians: Pierre Trudeau; John Turner; then prime minister Lester B. Pearson; and Jean Chrétien.

Trudeau, Turner, and Chrétien would become prime ministers of this great country.

The Last House on the Left

The U.S. midterm elections are today. There is only one outcome:

* If  President Donald Trump keeps the House of Representatives, he is a "genius".

* If the Democrats win back the House, it's because of "voter fraud".

Some Show Called God Friended Me

An advert reminded me yesterday that had I managed to watch one of those newfangled one-hour dramatic television series' of very little weight: God Friended Me.

About twenty minutes into the program I realized I'd seen this before. It's essentially a new version of Highway to Heaven, Michael Landon's family-friendly series from the 1980s, with some minor changes.

While it's nice to see people of colour in the main cast, the continuing characters read as flat -- in this one episode I've seen, of course. And it stops at one.

I can claim to have seen no more than a couple of episodes of Highway to Heaven but at the time I felt it had some style. There was some filmmaking evident in that five-year mission. God Friended Me carries that snappy dullness so prevalent in series television today.

"Oh, don't forget to wrap up with a song!" That's it. When you have absolutely nothing to say, put in a song! (Where's David Rose when you need him?)

God it was bad.

Sunday Fun: Project U.F.O. Opening

A "mid-season replacement" series, Project U.F.O. satiated those viewers who were into tales of space visitors. The NBC series premiered in February of 1978 to some fanfare, and I was there.

Project U.F.O. was a Jack Webb production, and to make sure there was no mistake who was behind this series, the man himself narrated the opening titles with his trademarked voice and authoritative, and dry as toast, diction.

A typical episode featured stars William Jordan and Caskey Swaim (or the second season's Edward Winter) investigating a UFO sighting. Over the television hour the U.S. Air Force's intrepid special team would interview each individual, who in turn, would recount their story of the event; in Rashomon-like fashion, but without outright contradiction (they did witness something not of this Earth, after all), we'd see essentially the same sequence but with variations based on that person's perspective.

Now that I think about it, the show could be dull at times, even if stories of Unidentified Flying Objects were "in" back then. (Keep in mind that Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been released just a few months before Project hit the airwaves....hoping to catch the wave.)

The final episode of Project U.F.O. landed in July of 1979.

Jean Chrétien on Pot

"I don't know what is marijuana. Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand."

I wonder....